The Land of Microprocessors and High Tech

Even if you don’t visit the Promised Land, the Promised Land’s technology is coming to you.

If you thought Israel was best known in the worldwide business community for its exports of oranges, olive oil, wines, and diamonds, I’ve got news for you. Israeli technology is growing by leaps and bounds. If Leaps and Bounds was an Olympic event, Israel would take home the gold. Here is just a selection of the exciting developments happening right now in the land of milk and honey.

Israeli technology is growing by leaps and bounds.

Say Goodbye to Surgical Stitches And Staples

If a new Israeli product from IonMed gets market approval, surgeons will have a revolutionary tool in their hands for scar-free incision closure. Finally, I’ll be able to have my appendix removed without worrying about it interrupting my swimsuit modeling career. But even more importantly, women giving birth by Caesarean section could be the first to benefit from a revolutionary Israeli invention for closing surgical incisions without stitches or staples. And with the money you save on stitches and staples, you’ll be able to give the surgeon a nice tip. The technique also promises to leave patients less prone to infection and scarring. BioWeld1, a unique trademarked product from Israeli startup IonMed, welds surgical incisions using cold plasma. This is a big improvement over the duct tape used by many HMO surgeons today. The procedure takes a few minutes, seals the area completely, leaves minimal scarring or painful stitches, and does not require complex training. And you know what that means – we’ll soon see it being pitched on Fox’s reality show, “Shark Tank”!

Priceline snaps up Israeli ad tech start-up

The acquisition of Qlika by online travel giant Priceline is the latest win for Israel’s blooming advertising technology industry. The next challenge will be to learn how to pronounce “Qlika.” Media reports said that Priceline paid around $3 million cash for the company. That’s nearly as much as a one-week stay in a U.S. hospital. The Qlika deal is just the latest success for an Israeli company in the area of advertising technology, which has become an important part of the Israeli technology ecosystem. For those unfamiliar with the term “ecosystem,” that’s where you shout out the word “system” across a canyon and you hear your voice coming back to you.

Established in 2012 by three classmates at Hebrew University, Qlika concentrates on “micro-marketing” – targeting consumers in very small geographical areas, with very specific search results for mobile device users based on what they are looking for and where they are. In other words, you can run, but you can’t hide from their advertising. Qlika’s technology creates campaigns geared to directing customers to local businesses and services. According to the company, the approach Qlika takes to online advertising has helped several of its clients – described as “major US advertisers” – increase their return on investment in Qlika’s services by as much as 50%. And that’s a language that any company can understand.

Israeli tech PointGrab puts you in gesture control

Imagine gesturing “open” at your refrigerator and watching the doors part as if by magic. Picture entering a dark room and signaling the light to go on with the point of your finger. Oh, sure, that’s easy enough if your name is Moses, Merlin or Houdini, but what about the rest of us civilians? Good news – we can now do all that, too! Thanks to an Israeli startup called PointGrab, life is now a breeze. Now, you don’t have to press the buttons on your remote control to channel surf; nor do you have to get up to switch songs on the computer across the room. Your bare hands can do the trick. Talk about a great way to impress your date.

How is this possible? Chalk it up to PointGrab’s advanced gesture recognition software, on the market since 2010, which offers an intuitive way of interacting with consumer devices. Through finger, hand and two-hand movements, the software communicates with the standard camera of PCs, tablets, smartphones and TVs for a whole new user experience. To paraphrase the famous line from “Captain Phillips” – you’re the captain now.

Its Hybrid Action Recognition technology – which won the Frost & Sullivan 2013 European Technology Innovation Award – was introduced last July and can accurately and reliably anticipate, detect and analyze shapes and movements up to 17 feet away. Reminds me of my Uncle Ralph, who could do that at the beach. PointGrab does not sell directly to consumers, but to equipment manufacturers. So, start sucking up to equipment manufacturers.

When it comes to finding and paying for parking spots in cities all over the world, Israeli technologies like Anagog, Parko and Pango are leading the way.

You may already be involved with Israeli technology. Chances are you already use the Israeli app Waze to find the best route to wherever you want to drive. After arriving, you might have another Israeli company to thank for finding you a parking spot and paying for it without a hassle. Pango is an app that lets you book and pay for on-street and parking lot spots via iOS, Android or Blackberry device, in Israel and in a growing number of major US cities. That’s right – even if you don’t go to the Promised Land, the Promised Land’s technology is bringing itself to you.

Thanks to the convenience of its patented pay-by-phone technology – no need for cash or paper tickets – Pango is the leading app to pay for parking in Israel. If you won’t make it to your car before the time runs out, you get a reminder to “feed the meter” from your phone. If you’re done early, you can use the “unpark” option to be billed only for the time you’ve been parked. And rumor has it that Pango is working on a Jewish mother add-on function that can remind you to sit up straight, eat with an appetite, and explain why your cousin Michael is so much more successful than you are.

But how do you find a spot? Thought you’d never ask. Another Israeli startup, Parko, uses crowdsourcing and GPS to steer drivers to spots that other users are about to vacate. If they’re not vacating fast enough, Parko will send over one of its Vacating Specialists, such as Big Vinnie, to convince them to get a move on. Integration with Pango users aims to give drivers the most accurate info possible – or, at least more accurate than they had been getting from their Aunt Sheila and Uncle Mort.

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About the Author

Mark Miller is a comedy writer who has performed stand-up comedy in nightclubs and on TV, written on numerous sit-com staffs, been a humor columnist for the Los Angeles Times Syndicate and is a current humor blogger for The Huffington Post. His first book, a collection of his humor essays on dating and romance, was published by Skyhorse Publishing on February 3rd of 2015. Its title: 500 Dates: Dispatches From the Front Lines of the Online Dating Wars. But he says he’d trade all his success away in a minute for immortality, inner peace and limitless wealth. Follow his website/blog at: http://www.markmillerhumorist.com/. And he can be reached at: mark.writer@gmail.com

The opinions expressed in the comment section are the personal views of the commenters. Comments are moderated, so please keep it civil.

Visitor Comments: 2

(2)
Anonymous,
July 11, 2014 3:36 AM

This was great!

Funny AND informing! (is that a word?). I love reading up on the latest technology, miracles in our daily life, and you made it fun to do so with your terrific humor! How I wish the doctors had BioWeld1 twenty two years ago, when I could have used it, big-time, after a terrible car crash. On a happier note, I was amazed to watch my daughter use Waze on the the two-lane back-road up to Jerusalem, where it really helps to know if there is a truck up ahead who is chugging along at 25 kilometers an hour on the uphill road, which will make you late for your appointment, since there are 15 cars backed up behind him waiting to pass. Not that there was anything Waze could do about it, but it was cool knowing about it in advance, so we had more time to groan and kvetch!

(1)
kyei zander,
March 28, 2014 11:49 AM

aish make me fill like i am in Israel.

I in love with Israel, because of aish.com. you presents to us the best of Israel. keep it up!

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I've been striving to get more into spirituality. But it seems that every time I make some progress, I find myself slipping right back to where I started. I'm getting discouraged and feel like a failure. Can you help?

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

Spiritual slumps are a natural part of spiritual growth. There is a cycle that people go through when at times they feel closer to God and at times more distant. In the words of the Kabbalists, it is "two steps forward and one step back." So although you feel you are slipping, know that this is a natural process. The main thing is to look at your overall progress (over months or years) and be able to see how far you've come!

This is actually God's ingenious way of motivating us further. The sages compare this to teaching a baby how to walk. When the parent is holding on, the baby shrieks with delight and is under the illusion that he knows how to walk. Yet suddenly, when the parent lets go, the child panics, wobbles and may even fall.

At such times when we feel spiritually "down," that is often because God is letting go, giving us the great gift of independence. In some ways, these are the times when we can actually grow the most. For if we can move ourselves just a little bit forward, we truly acquire a level of sanctity that is ours forever.

Here is a practical tool to help pull you out of the doldrums. The Sefer HaChinuch speaks about a great principle in spiritual growth: "The external awakens the internal." This means that although we may not experience immediate feelings of closeness to God, eventually, by continuing to conduct ourselves in such a manner, this physical behavior will have an impact on our spiritual selves and will help us succeed. (A similar idea is discussed by psychologists who say: "Smile and you will feel happy.")

That is the power of Torah commandments. Even if we may not feel like giving charity or praying at this particular moment, by having a "mitzvah" obligation to do so, we are in a framework to become inspired. At that point we can infuse that act of charity or prayer with all the meaning and lift it can provide. But if we'd wait until being inspired, we might be waiting a very long time.

May the Almighty bless you with the clarity to see your progress, and may you do so with joy.

In 1940, a boatload 1,600 Jewish immigrants fleeing Hitler's ovens was denied entry into the port of Haifa; the British deported them to the island of Mauritius. At the time, the British had acceded to Arab demands and restricted Jewish immigration into Palestine. The urgent plight of European Jewry generated an "illegal" immigration movement, but the British were vigilant in denying entry. Some ships, such as the Struma, sunk and their hundreds of passengers killed.

If you seize too much, you are left with nothing. If you take less, you may retain it (Rosh Hashanah 4b).

Sometimes our appetites are insatiable; more accurately, we act as though they were insatiable. The Midrash states that a person may never be satisfied. "If he has one hundred, he wants two hundred. If he gets two hundred, he wants four hundred" (Koheles Rabbah 1:34). How often have we seen people whose insatiable desire for material wealth resulted in their losing everything, much like the gambler whose constant urge to win results in total loss.

People's bodies are finite, and their actual needs are limited. The endless pursuit for more wealth than they can use is nothing more than an elusive belief that they can live forever (Psalms 49:10).

The one part of us which is indeed infinite is our neshamah (soul), which, being of Divine origin, can crave and achieve infinity and eternity, and such craving is characteristic of spiritual growth.

How strange that we tend to give the body much more than it can possibly handle, and the neshamah so much less than it needs!